North America: Countries, Capitals, and Key Features
North America contains 23 sovereign countries, a total that includes the Caribbean island nations often overlooked in casual study. The three largest by area are the United States (capital: Washington, D.C.), Canada (capital: Ottawa, not Toronto), and Mexico (capital: Mexico City). Key physical features: the Rocky Mountains run from New Mexico through Canada into Alaska; the Mississippi-Missouri river system drains the vast interior plains; the Great Lakes — Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario — form the world's largest group of freshwater lakes by total area. The Caribbean region adds complexity: Jamaica's capital is Kingston, Cuba's is Havana, Haiti's is Port-au-Prince, and the Dominican Republic's is Santo Domingo. Do not confuse Trinidad and Tobago (capital: Port of Spain) with other island nations.
Central America: Seven Countries
Central America is the narrow land bridge connecting North and South America and consists of exactly seven countries. Their capitals, from north to south:
- Guatemala — Guatemala City
- Belize — Belmopan (not Belize City, which is the largest city)
- Honduras — Tegucigalpa
- El Salvador — San Salvador
- Nicaragua — Managua
- Costa Rica — San José
- Panama — Panama City
The Panama Canal — connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans — is one of the world's most important shipping routes and a frequent geography question topic. Central America sits on the Caribbean Plate and is seismically and volcanically active, lying within the Ring of Fire.
South America: Capitals and Physical Geography
South America has 12 sovereign countries. The capitals you must know include: Brasília (Brazil — not Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Lima (Peru), Bogotá (Colombia), Santiago (Chile), Caracas (Venezuela), Quito (Ecuador), La Paz (Bolivia's seat of government; Sucre is the constitutional capital), Asunción (Paraguay), Montevideo (Uruguay), Georgetown (Guyana), Paramaribo (Suriname), and Cayenne (French Guiana, an overseas territory of France). The two landlocked countries are Bolivia and Paraguay.
Major Physical Features of South America
The continent's physical geography is dominated by two defining features. The Amazon River — the world's largest river by discharge, carrying roughly 20% of all fresh water entering the world's oceans — flows eastward across the continent from its source in the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil. The surrounding Amazon Rainforest is the world's largest tropical rainforest, covering approximately 5.5 million km². The Andes Mountains, running ~7,000 km along the entire western coast, are the world's longest continental mountain range and include Aconcagua (6,961 m), the highest peak in both the Western and Southern Hemispheres. Other notable features: the Atacama Desert in Chile and Peru is the world's driest non-polar desert; Patagonia covers the southern tip of the continent; and the Galápagos Islands, belonging to Ecuador, are famous for their role in Darwin's theory of natural selection.
High-Yield IGB Facts for the Americas
These specific facts appear regularly in geography competition questions and are worth memorizing directly:
- Angel Falls in Venezuela (979 m) is the world's highest uninterrupted waterfall — significantly taller than Niagara Falls.
- Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth-largest in the world by area, and it is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas.
- The Amazon Basin spans nine countries: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.
- Lake Titicaca, on the Peru-Bolivia border at 3,812 m above sea level, is the world's highest navigable lake.
- The Strait of Magellan separates mainland South America from Tierra del Fuego, and Cape Horn marks the southernmost point of the Americas.